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So He Takes the Dog
On a beach in southern England, a dog returns to its owner with a human hand in its mouth: so begins this unforgettable new novel from the author of Ghost MacIndoe and Invisible.
The hand belongs to Henry, the homeless eccentric who has been wandering the south-west of England for the last thirty years, most recently living rough in the town. The local policeman and his accomplice, in piecing together his movements prior to his death, talking to those who knew and watched him, uncover an extraordinary life. But their investigations tellingly shed light on the town itself, and the story of Henry and those who tell it begins to affect the narrator-policeman’s own life in ways he never expected.
This is a detective story like no other, a novel that further confirms Jonathan Buckley as one of the finest novelists at work in this country.
The hand belongs to Henry, the homeless eccentric who has been wandering the south-west of England for the last thirty years, most recently living rough in the town. The local policeman and his accomplice, in piecing together his movements prior to his death, talking to those who knew and watched him, uncover an extraordinary life. But their investigations tellingly shed light on the town itself, and the story of Henry and those who tell it begins to affect the narrator-policeman’s own life in ways he never expected.
This is a detective story like no other, a novel that further confirms Jonathan Buckley as one of the finest novelists at work in this country.
336 pages, Paperback
First published July 17, 2006
About the author
Jonathan Buckley
73 books60 followersJonathan Buckley was born in Birmingham, grew up in Dudley, and studied English Literature at Sussex University, where he stayed on to take an MA. From there he moved to King’s College, London, where he researched the work of the Scottish poet/artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. After working as a university tutor, stage hand, maker of theatrical sets and props, bookshop manager, decorator and builder, he was commissioned in 1987 to write the Rough Guide to Venice & the Veneto.
He went on to become an editorial director at Rough Guides, and to write further guidebooks on Tuscany & Umbria and Florence, as well as contributing to the Rough Guide to Classical Music and Rough Guide to Opera.
His first novel, The Biography of Thomas Lang, was published by Fourth Estate in 1997. It was followed by Xerxes (1999), Ghost MacIndoe (2001), Invisible (2004), So He Takes The Dog (2006), Contact (2010) and Telescope (2011). His eighth novel, Nostalgia, was published in 2013.
From 2003 to 2005 he held a Royal Literary Fund fellowship at the University of Sussex, and from 2007 to 2011 was an Advisory Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, for whom he convenes a reading group in Brighton.
He went on to become an editorial director at Rough Guides, and to write further guidebooks on Tuscany & Umbria and Florence, as well as contributing to the Rough Guide to Classical Music and Rough Guide to Opera.
His first novel, The Biography of Thomas Lang, was published by Fourth Estate in 1997. It was followed by Xerxes (1999), Ghost MacIndoe (2001), Invisible (2004), So He Takes The Dog (2006), Contact (2010) and Telescope (2011). His eighth novel, Nostalgia, was published in 2013.
From 2003 to 2005 he held a Royal Literary Fund fellowship at the University of Sussex, and from 2007 to 2011 was an Advisory Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, for whom he convenes a reading group in Brighton.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
June 27, 2008
A mystery not solved. The mood, the characters, the writing. Compelling.
October 11, 2017
Maybe I am being a bit harsh only giving this book two stars. It contains marvellous description and paints vivid pictures in the mind. If only there was a plot to wrap it around.
Again, maybe I'm being harsh. There is a plot, after about chapter 23, but it really isn't the plot I expected. The pitch and blurb led me to believe it would be a who-dun-it, "piecing together the last movements of Henry". This is what I wanted when I picked it up, but instead I got a slow-moving pastiche of various characters with little in the way of character development and no meaningful events to link them together. For much of the book, I had no idea whose story I was supposed to invest my interest in. A cast of thousands who don't interact.
It is the publisher who decides the pitch, and in this case they woefully misled me. Had they described the book as a piecing together of a life-story, I would have approached the narrative differently, and certainly given it a better rating. It just isn't what it purports to be.
Again, maybe I'm being harsh. There is a plot, after about chapter 23, but it really isn't the plot I expected. The pitch and blurb led me to believe it would be a who-dun-it, "piecing together the last movements of Henry". This is what I wanted when I picked it up, but instead I got a slow-moving pastiche of various characters with little in the way of character development and no meaningful events to link them together. For much of the book, I had no idea whose story I was supposed to invest my interest in. A cast of thousands who don't interact.
It is the publisher who decides the pitch, and in this case they woefully misled me. Had they described the book as a piecing together of a life-story, I would have approached the narrative differently, and certainly given it a better rating. It just isn't what it purports to be.
October 29, 2017
Loved this one. Like a Reservoir 13 it starts with a crime, and more a policeman. Then it winds for several years of character .
April 14, 2015
A dry distant narrative style meant I didn't hold out a lot of hope for this one at the start, but it was compelling and strangely satisfying, given the lack of solution to the whodunit.
June 1, 2026
A body is found on a beach. It's the local vagrant and there's a long investigation to find out who he is. But dear, oh dear, what a drag it is. The police are bored. The witnesses are bored. And it's not long before the reader is the most bored of all.
Firstly, if you are going to read this, have a notebook handy. Literally dozens of characters appear, say a few inconsequential words (in amazing observed detail) and then vanish .... only to appear again several hundred pages later with no clues as to who they are or what part they played and you are supposed to remember all about them!
Then the narrator goes on holiday, when we get about a hundred pages (in incredible detail) of how boring the holiday is, with blow-by-blow accounts of trinket sellers and dogs. Then he has an affair which doesn't seem to start. We can see it coming then it appears to have started but with no start; no first kiss, just the announcement that he's been having the affair but no details.
Another problem is the writing style. It seems to meander between a sort of 'pub-joke' present tense (a man walks into a bar and he says ...) Then it's past tense. The first person narrator refers to himself in the third person. Often scenes are described when it's not clear if he is present. All very pretentious and confusing.
And then it just ends. No resolution. No conclusion. No denouement. No arrests. It felt as if it had been put out of its misery. But like leaving it too long before putting down a sick pet, it should have happened before it suffered so much.
The book gets one extra star because of the incredibly and finely observed detail.
Firstly, if you are going to read this, have a notebook handy. Literally dozens of characters appear, say a few inconsequential words (in amazing observed detail) and then vanish .... only to appear again several hundred pages later with no clues as to who they are or what part they played and you are supposed to remember all about them!
Then the narrator goes on holiday, when we get about a hundred pages (in incredible detail) of how boring the holiday is, with blow-by-blow accounts of trinket sellers and dogs. Then he has an affair which doesn't seem to start. We can see it coming then it appears to have started but with no start; no first kiss, just the announcement that he's been having the affair but no details.
Another problem is the writing style. It seems to meander between a sort of 'pub-joke' present tense (a man walks into a bar and he says ...) Then it's past tense. The first person narrator refers to himself in the third person. Often scenes are described when it's not clear if he is present. All very pretentious and confusing.
And then it just ends. No resolution. No conclusion. No denouement. No arrests. It felt as if it had been put out of its misery. But like leaving it too long before putting down a sick pet, it should have happened before it suffered so much.
The book gets one extra star because of the incredibly and finely observed detail.
May 31, 2025
I really waffled between 3 and 4 stars so…Our book club read this and was looking forward to having a spirited discussion of the unsolved murder, following the police in their methodical investigation, and getting others opinions on the characters and confusing plot line meanderings. But, because of a flat, never made it to the event…
So here I am, still with a zillion questions and very few answers. Poor Henry…one bad decision made in panic…and two lives are lost. Hannah can not rescue Henry who probably does not feel he deserves rescuing. The police go in circles for most of the story and in the end, even though they have unravelled some of Henry’s past actions and their consequences, they still only know that Henry was definitely murdered. But as someone else’s review pointed out, maybe it wasn’t the writer’s intention to answer the question of who done it.
The story was beautifully written and even though it took me close to two weeks to finish, was a very compelling read.
So here I am, still with a zillion questions and very few answers. Poor Henry…one bad decision made in panic…and two lives are lost. Hannah can not rescue Henry who probably does not feel he deserves rescuing. The police go in circles for most of the story and in the end, even though they have unravelled some of Henry’s past actions and their consequences, they still only know that Henry was definitely murdered. But as someone else’s review pointed out, maybe it wasn’t the writer’s intention to answer the question of who done it.
The story was beautifully written and even though it took me close to two weeks to finish, was a very compelling read.
October 1, 2022
Two 'offbeat' crime novels on the trot was perhaps a bit of a mistake but I still found this quite a refreshingly different angle on the genre. There were a few places where the tweaks to the point of view and the detachment felt too mannered and there's one character to whom I took a dislike (I think I may have been supposed to) The story depicts the careful and persistent police work to try to uncover the life of the man Benjamin finds dead on the beach because he took the dog but in the process lights are shone onto the lives of those who had even the most fleeting of contacts and those of the police officers. It felt a bit weird the latter were all male.
It's a sad, wry and kind book.
It's a sad, wry and kind book.
July 6, 2025
Didn’t really take to this. Clearly two main characters - but lots of other characters, that were quite hard to follow, that weren’t very well drawn, often weren’t sympathetic and didn’t seem to add to the understanding of the main two. I enjoyed the gentle nature of it and the slow reveal of the narrator.
January 6, 2021
Beautifully written but nothing much happens and i wasn't keen on the writing style
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July 23, 2021
A story that tries to put together the pieces of someone's life. It does not always follow a linear progression or a logical pattern, but then neither does life.
March 4, 2022
Great story, with an odd ending.
January 29, 2024
This started out so well for me - a solid 4 stars. But then the story just kept dawdling on and on, and here we are at the end, docking 2 whole stars for a variety of reasons.
Actually, let me start with something positive -
Jonathan is an exceptionally clever storyteller, and definitely knows how to flesh out an otherwise somewhat lacking plotline. I think what you, as the prospective reader, should understand right off the bat is the following: this is not a murder mystery book. In fact, the murder is never solved and we still know maddeningly little about the victim at the end. Perhaps this is an artistic touch of the author. Perhaps we should instead view it as some profoundly intelligent writing. And it is! It's a whimsically written drama about life in different variations of its most mundane states. It is picturesque and at times lyrical. It's a million little stories in one. The author is adept at starting somewhere in the middle of a story, and then bringing it all together with the beginning and end so everything makes sense. But it does feel a little haphazardly thrown together at times, difficult to distinguish the main characters/plot from all the noise. And, it is most definitely NOT going to scratch your itch for a whodunnit...
In addition, I did not like any of the characters. Except maybe Alice. Alice was alright. But there was not a single character that I can say I grew positively fond of, somewhere in amongst the overly exaggerated and embellished prose. Which is unheard of. Usually at the end of a book I am beyond ready to kiss, marry or become best friends with at least one (human) character, and half a zillion animals. I feel bereft at not having made a single friend in this book.
There were times (mostly at the beginning) where this book was striking and intriguing and so well constructed. Wow, the imagination required to think up all the back-, side- and cover stories is truly commendable. As is the clever little gut-wrenching plot twist somewhere near the end. But. There is no climax. No wind-down. No character development (save for the victim profile. Isn't it ironic that the only character development is that of the dead guy, which, by the way, was also riddled with contradictions and plotholes?). Again, perhaps this was deliberate. I couldn't say.
All in all, it was not horrible. But I cannot with a clear conscience give 3 stars when I know for a fact I would have steared well clear if I knew at the start what I know now.
One concession though: what a SUPER CLEVER TITLE...
Actually, let me start with something positive -
Jonathan is an exceptionally clever storyteller, and definitely knows how to flesh out an otherwise somewhat lacking plotline. I think what you, as the prospective reader, should understand right off the bat is the following: this is not a murder mystery book. In fact, the murder is never solved and we still know maddeningly little about the victim at the end. Perhaps this is an artistic touch of the author. Perhaps we should instead view it as some profoundly intelligent writing. And it is! It's a whimsically written drama about life in different variations of its most mundane states. It is picturesque and at times lyrical. It's a million little stories in one. The author is adept at starting somewhere in the middle of a story, and then bringing it all together with the beginning and end so everything makes sense. But it does feel a little haphazardly thrown together at times, difficult to distinguish the main characters/plot from all the noise. And, it is most definitely NOT going to scratch your itch for a whodunnit...
In addition, I did not like any of the characters. Except maybe Alice. Alice was alright. But there was not a single character that I can say I grew positively fond of, somewhere in amongst the overly exaggerated and embellished prose. Which is unheard of. Usually at the end of a book I am beyond ready to kiss, marry or become best friends with at least one (human) character, and half a zillion animals. I feel bereft at not having made a single friend in this book.
There were times (mostly at the beginning) where this book was striking and intriguing and so well constructed. Wow, the imagination required to think up all the back-, side- and cover stories is truly commendable. As is the clever little gut-wrenching plot twist somewhere near the end. But. There is no climax. No wind-down. No character development (save for the victim profile. Isn't it ironic that the only character development is that of the dead guy, which, by the way, was also riddled with contradictions and plotholes?). Again, perhaps this was deliberate. I couldn't say.
All in all, it was not horrible. But I cannot with a clear conscience give 3 stars when I know for a fact I would have steared well clear if I knew at the start what I know now.
One concession though: what a SUPER CLEVER TITLE...
February 23, 2017
I am so glad I read this book.
January 15, 2009
A Beautiful Tease
As I began reading this book, I formed certain assumptions about what it would be; crime fiction. At some point, the perpetrator of the central 'event' would be found, and questions would be answered. We follow the narrator - a policeman - and his partner through endless speculation, interpretation, determination, conversation - to be told that our assumptions are wrong, that crimes are stories regardless of whether they have a resolution, stories about the people who touch the victim in even only the most subtle of ways, stories told differently by different people, with bias and without, with compassion and without, with conclusion and without.
I've read other books without concrete endings in the past with satisfaction, surprise and reflection - unfortunately, this one succeeded in frustrating me, which coloured the hindsight of my enjoyment. The evident revelry in words, the wonderful characters, the utterly absorbing atmosphere of seaside township carried me and my assumption along, and then dropped me off with an embarrassed shrug.
Litritchur, not crime fiction... dammit, Mr. Buckley, you are such a tease..
As I began reading this book, I formed certain assumptions about what it would be; crime fiction. At some point, the perpetrator of the central 'event' would be found, and questions would be answered. We follow the narrator - a policeman - and his partner through endless speculation, interpretation, determination, conversation - to be told that our assumptions are wrong, that crimes are stories regardless of whether they have a resolution, stories about the people who touch the victim in even only the most subtle of ways, stories told differently by different people, with bias and without, with compassion and without, with conclusion and without.
I've read other books without concrete endings in the past with satisfaction, surprise and reflection - unfortunately, this one succeeded in frustrating me, which coloured the hindsight of my enjoyment. The evident revelry in words, the wonderful characters, the utterly absorbing atmosphere of seaside township carried me and my assumption along, and then dropped me off with an embarrassed shrug.
Litritchur, not crime fiction... dammit, Mr. Buckley, you are such a tease..
February 3, 2012
What to make of this. It has a sticker on it that says crime - and indeed it is about a crime, the washed up body of a tramp who has multiple identies.
Told in a strange 1st person manner by the policeman on the case - John - it discusses the witnesses, people, his life and the victims life in a dry, sly and slighty underhand manner.
In one section, about the weirdness of people buckley writes "It's only when you get into their houses that you see what lies behind day-to-day normalness" and this for me is what the book is about - how people exist.
The detective starts an affair with one of the witnesses, the tramp killed a kid in a speeding incident and went off the rails (his life is slowly revealed), why he was killed is never revealed.
So not so much as who done it really.
Strange, kind of haunting book - one I am unsure as to why Sonia completed and I am not sure I will read another one of his instantly.
Told in a strange 1st person manner by the policeman on the case - John - it discusses the witnesses, people, his life and the victims life in a dry, sly and slighty underhand manner.
In one section, about the weirdness of people buckley writes "It's only when you get into their houses that you see what lies behind day-to-day normalness" and this for me is what the book is about - how people exist.
The detective starts an affair with one of the witnesses, the tramp killed a kid in a speeding incident and went off the rails (his life is slowly revealed), why he was killed is never revealed.
So not so much as who done it really.
Strange, kind of haunting book - one I am unsure as to why Sonia completed and I am not sure I will read another one of his instantly.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 30, 2008
A murder mystery, detective, who-done-it with no villain. This is about the minutiae of life – with all of its loose odds and ends, irrelevancies, disappointments - slightly disconcerting as I read through most of it trying to spot the baddy, but I guess things don't always (ever?) end up neatly, with solutions found and conclusions drawn. The writing is elegant, and clean, and so well observed … sometimes the way JB describes something is just right - what about this for an opening paragraph…. "Its mid-morning on the second day of January, in the modest but immaculate little bungalow that is home to Benjamin and Christine Kemp. Having clambered over the aisle of New Year's Day, the Kemps are now setting out on their trek across the bleak moorland of yet another year of conjoined medium-level misery.”
January 15, 2014
I picked this book up in the Mystery Novels category, but it didn't feel like one to me. It was more like a gradual but clear depiction of how the lives of people intercross (through countless engaging anecdotes and interesting characters), but to different degrees and how the feelings evoked from these relationships are of varying intensities.
The style of writing was great - the descriptions were so aptly put, and there was no pretentiousness about them.
I felt involved in the book and my curiosity as to who killed Henry kept me reading, but for those who enjoy a solid takeaway from books, like an evocation of sadness or whatsoever, this book may not be for you.
The style of writing was great - the descriptions were so aptly put, and there was no pretentiousness about them.
I felt involved in the book and my curiosity as to who killed Henry kept me reading, but for those who enjoy a solid takeaway from books, like an evocation of sadness or whatsoever, this book may not be for you.
October 21, 2009
reading this book was pretty much a waste of time. the only reason I persevered was that I have been home sick with a cold for 2 days, so I had time on my hands. The plot is incredibly circumstantial and tnagential: full of annecdotes about people irrelevant to the plot that are meant to be amusing. Needless to say they are only circumstantial, and annoying. The Big Mystery is never even solved. Its just dropped while the circumstanital details go on and on ad infinitum. Don't waste your time.
Read
August 8, 2008Go mystery, easy read in standard English. If you enjoy British mystery set in the present this book is fine. I was disappointed however, that past the first chapter there seems to be no reason though for this title. I might have named this "Dead Body on the Beach" if I wanted an irrelevant uncatchy title and done just as well
June 6, 2016
I'm not sure I connected with this novel very well. I liked the premise, a sort of thriller, but not told in the typical genre style, but I found it a bit plodding, a bit neither-here-nor-there. It felt jumbled and choked, like there was not enough room to move. It made me feel uncomfortable. But Buckley's notes about non-linear narratives at the end made it seem more sensible than it had.
October 9, 2011
Frustrating, irritating, confusing, tedious. Lots of irrelevant asides, the most invisible "first person" narrative I've ever come across. Only finished it because it was my book group read. Genuinely can't understand the positive reviews it got.
January 1, 2012
I loved this book, love the author's style of writing. The only bit I thought didn't really add to the story was when he had an affair. It didn't really seem that he was THAT into her that he would risk his marriage even if it was going through a rocky patch.
January 6, 2012
Well this did sound like an interesting read but it turned out to be very disappointing...
March 7, 2013
[3.5 stars]
January 22, 2017
At times I was very absorbed - and at other times I kept getting lost in the text - I guess I always look for a resolution and this story remains unresolved.
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May 22, 2017Sorry, it lost me!!!
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews